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Pilling, how to avoid it?

Among the most frequent defects claimed by the users after washing, is the pilling. Fabric pills are small clusters of fibres that accumulate on the surface of fabrics, due to friction, use and maintenance treatments that give the garment an aged “worn-in” look that is normally rejected by the customer.

Pilling o snagging

If we consider the arrival of new fibres, with always lower fineness (we take the example of the microfibres), to frequently used new technologies (napping, emerizing) and the ultimate fashion trend for soft, lightweight garments (all elements with a negative effect on pilling resistance) it is recommended to:

– give the right importance to the size;
– check the garments at the moment of reception, often the defect is barely noticeable (flattened hair) and can only be detected after washing;

Do not confuse pilling with snagging: hair shedding, pulled threads and pills that arise on garments due to washing of continuous and stretch yarn garments.

snagging - elastane spillage

Knitted and woven fabrics can be manufactured using both yarns and continuous threads. The yarn is a set of discontinuous fibres of limited length of a few mm (such as cotton) to 10 -15 cm (mohair and wool-cut synthetic fibres), bonded togeth-er by torsion, while the thread is a set of filaments of unlimited length of several hundred metres with no interruption.

yarn - thread

Pilling only occurs on fabrics made from yarn, causing a spillage of the short fibres out of the yarn. Snagging, on the other hand, occurs only on continuous yarn or a yarn-thread mix.

What is Pilling

These small pills are nothing more than clusters of fibres arising from the pressure and friction on the surface of the garment. With the mechanical agitation caused by washing and wearing, a part of the fibres migrates to the tissue surface. These fibres tend to stretch and tangle until they form small balls which gradually swell and remain attached to the bottom of the knit by some fibres; if the fibres are fragile, they break and the balls already formed are falling, otherwise they will become larger and larger.

This is illustrated in the diagram below.

Photographic dynamics of pilling

The following photos illustrate the photographic dynamics of the pilling:

some fibres spilling out of the fabric - fibres are getting tangled

the ends of the fibres tend to roll in the shape of a small ball - the little ball or pill is now
completed and anchored to the textile substrate by some fibres, and the pills are going to fall due to the breakage of the fibres that are holding it tied to the fabric

the pills do not detach from the fabric, and get bigger and bigger

Quality factors causing pilling that the laundry must take into consideration when receiving the garments for cleaning

First of all, you must evaluate the fabric type. The most commonly affected fibres are wool, cotton, synthetic and artificial cotton staple fibres, and especially natural and artificial blends, for example wool/cotton, polyester/wool, acrylic/wool; in other words, the “mixture” of two fibres, including one that easily tends to spill out of the yarn, and a very tight one that keeps the hair and pills on the surface, and slowly turning into large pills. The second evaluation is related to the fineness of the fibre, the thinner the fibre, the higher the pilling tendency: such as cashmere, fine wools, microfibres. Then comes the fibre length. The shorter the fibre, the higher the pilling: short fibres are wool, and synthetic and artificial cotton staple fibres. A special focus on finishing (trimming, hair-burning, enzymatic treatment, resin-based treatments and softeners etc) can determine the formation of pilling. Finally, the underarm sweating causes pilling.

appearance of a down jacket in polyester warp and cotton weft,
extrusion of very short white cotton fibres -
check the appearance of underarm fabric

How pilling is measured

Independently of the method used, pilling resistance is expressed with a value rang-ing from 1 – very bad to 5 – very good using an universal reference scale. We can also use a photographic reference scale showing 5 textile samples with vari-ous pilling effects marked with assessment values ranging from 1 (sample with a lot of pills) to 5 (sample without pills). A numerical rating from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good) is assigned to the examined sample after the laboratory test, that simulates friction stress, numerical rating from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good) according to the photographic reference scale. There are two scales: one for knitted fabrics and one for woven fabrics. The pictures below are the reference scale that helps us give an assessment after per-forming various tests, as shown in the table.

example of photographic scale to evaluate pilling – rating scale

Pilling box ICI (ISO 12945-1/02) - test results

Apparecchio Martindale (IWS TM 196/80) - risultati del test

Martindale Abrasion & Pilling Tester (IWS TM 196/80) - test results

LART

Laboratorio Analisi e Ricerca Tessile
Textile Research and Analysis Laboratory
Via Vasco de Gama 2 41012 CARPI (MO)
Tel. 059 645279
lart@lartessile.it – www.lartessile.it

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